Fibre optics inventor woos Chinese technology companies

Fibre optics inventor and world renowned scientist, Dr Thomas Mensah, is working with Ghana’s Ambassador to China, Mr Edward Boateng, to bring tech companies in China, such as Alibaba and Baidu, as well as other tech companies to the Silicon Valley of Ghana that he has launched at the Kofi Annan ICT Centre.

He has already attracted Internet giants in the West, namely Apple Computer, Google and Microsoft to the Silicon Valley of Ghana and would like to include Chinese companies.

Additionally, Dr Mensah noted that Dubai and UAE are training one million high school students in software and would like the Silicon Valley to train 300,000 SHS students in software to make them competitive on the global stage.

That, he said, would help Ghana leapfrog other countries in the years to come.

Dr Mensah, who was part of the presidential business delegation to the 2018 Africa Business Forum in Beijing, led by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, said the President made a good choice by appointing Mr Boateng as ambassador to the second economic power in the world.

He commended Mr Boateng for a successful organisation of the forum which was attended by 50 heads of state from Africa.

The event takes place every three years and focuses on close collaboration between countries in Africa and China as part of China’s Global Silk Road Programme. Infrastructure development, investment, industrial development, technology transfer, capacity building and global trade are foundations of this collaboration.

As part of the visit, President Akufo-Addo met with the Chairman of the Internet Giant Alibaba, Jack Ma; and the tech company, Inspur. He also discussed many collaboration and technology transfer initiatives with the Governor of the Shandong Province.

He said he was pleased with the outcome of the conference which included the bullet train ride by the President and the delegation from Beijing to Shandong, the most industrialised province of China.

Dr Mensah said he was also impressed that China had moved 600 million people out of poverty and 300 million people into the middle-class through technology and industrialisation, making China a very attractive model for transforming Africa.

Ghana also secured, among others, an agreement with a trucking company to set up an assembly plant in Ghana and according to Dr Mensah, that was significant since Ghana had already secured an automobile assembly plant by Volkswagen when Chancellor Angela Merkel visited Ghana.

The President of China, His Excellency Xi Jinping, who was the convener of the conference, pledged $60 billion for African countries for infrastructure development and modernisation.

Dr Mensah holds several patents in Fibre Optics and has written four books on Innovation, including Nanotechnology Commercialisation used in many universities all over the world to teach Ph.D students.

Five Chinese professors and engineers were contributing authors in one out of the 12 chapters of the book. His other books include Fiber Optics Engineering and Superconductor Engineering.

He is a Fellow of the US National Academy of Inventors, Fellow of American Institute of Chemical Engineers, Associate Fellow of American Institute of Aeronautics and a Fellow of Ghana Institute of Engineers.